Night Owls
by weatheredlaw
Summary: He heard him say it through the shadows and that was enough to put him to sleep.


**A/N:** Oh I got bit by the porn bug. Sorry!

**Disclaimer: I own nothing but my plots and OC's.**

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**Night Owls**

He hadn't slept in days. Not since they'd returned from Kaiba's Championship and the bout with Dartz, all souls accounted for, all the memories still seared deep in everyones conscious. Teá was relatively silent, Joey a little less obnoxious, Tristan a bit more contemplative. Even Yugi seemed effected by it all, his eyes glazing over sometimes, lost in thought, remembering things he'd tried to force out of his mind. Yami's mind decided it was best to never sleep again. To simply watch over Yugi and never stop. For he had failed in his duty as protector, he had failed in his duty as a guardian, and he had failed in his duty as a friend. As Yugi's self-proclaimed other self. In all those ways he had lost. He had lost his own way, it seemed. Lost direction and fallen out of place.

Yami was left with only his own darkness. And it was in those shadows he thought he could find comfort and solace, if he only kept his eyes open until they were meant to rest, and keep them forever fixed upon Yugi's safety. To blink for a moment could mean a future without his hikari, and the spirit didn't know what he'd do without him.

But his insomnia was not without consequence. Tied at the tightest spots, forever intertwined and woven together: this was Yugi and Yami. And so, when the spirit stopped sleeping, so did his light. The boy tried to hide this from his other half. Sleep brought dreams and in dreams one could become lost. Yugi didn't want to feel lost anymore. He wanted to be found. But he was floundering between the two and falling and slipping ever closer to being lost forever. His days were spent groggily doing one monotonous task after the other, shuffling from home to school, school to the arcade, arcade to his room, his desk to his bed, then lying away, making patterns in his ceiling. Playing connect the dots with the stars outside. Perhaps Yami didn't notice. Perhaps he'd become skilled enough at hiding himself...Yugi didn't know. But after a few weeks of very little sleep, he'd had enough. Yami was nowhere to be seen in the room, but Yugi could feel his well defined presence within the puzzle. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into that chasm.

Each time was like a new experience, something he'd never felt before, though he'd done it before, countless times. That little tug at his subconscious, a little shift in his weight and that satisfying thud as his backside hit the cold concrete of the floor. Yawning, he stood and made his way toward Yami's soul-room. No sense in announcing himself. He pushed the door open with some effort. Immediately, he felt the change. Cold and still, icy and apprehensive. Yugi didn't like the way it felt. So different from its usual warmth. Yami had built some kind of defense, so kind of curtain that the boy knew he was going to have trouble parting. "Mou hitori no boku?" he called into the darkness, looking around. "I know you're here. You can come out. I don't-" Yami appeared from the shadows, his eyebrows knit in frustration.

"What are you doing here? You should go back and go to sleep."

"I...I can't sleep." Yami looked surprise. He hadn't known. Yugi's mental defenses had grown stronger over the years, his mind harder and harder to read. Yami looked shamefully at the floor.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't think that my problems would become yours..." Yugi laughed.

"Your problems always become my problems. We share them, remember? We share everything." He walked closer and took his other half's hand. "When there's something on your mind, I want you to tell me, okay?" Yami shook his head, pulling away from the warm touch of Yugi's skin.

"No. I can't. Sometimes, it's better if I keep to myself." He turned away, but Yugi reached and grabbed his arm, tight.

"Hey! I want to go to sleep!" he yelled. "And if you wallow in your own self pity for five more minutes, then I....I'm...." Yami smirked. What could his little hikari do to him? Yugi wasn't violent. He didn't lash out. He wasn't-

WHOMP. Yami was thrown backward as Yugi plowed into his chest, hitting him with fists of rage and pent up aggression.

"I am so sick of you and your bullshit!" he yelled into Yami's chest, tears falling down his face. "I just want to sleep! I just...I just..." The fists fell softer now, the tears fell faster, and his whole body heaved with fury and exhaustion. He felt so tired, so rung out.

Yami lay on his back, watching in shock and surprise as Yugi's tired body gave out and collapsed on him, chest heaving and tears soaking into his shirt. "It's not your fault," the boy whispered. "It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Please, understand me. It's...it's not your fault." He rolled onto the ground next to Yami and covered his face with his hands. "Can't you see?" he asked, looking at his other half. "Can't you? I'm not angry with you! I don't hate you! You-"

"I failed you!" Yami jerked away from Yugi and stood, his back to him. "It's you who must see that I have failed you. I failed to protect you after I'd sworn to do so! And look what happened? I-"

"You're human." Yugi's voice came softly behind him, a small smile on his face. "Mou hitori no boku...you're only human. You're only what you've been made to be. And I don't expect you to change. Just because you feel like you have some duty doesn't mean you're free from the ways of the human world. Spirits are, in their own way, human as well." He took Yami's hand in his again. "I thought that you, of all people, would understand humanity...and forgiveness."

"Yugi..."

"You're only human, just like me. I need sleep and love and...and..." He looked away and the back at the spirit. "Someone to hold me sometimes. To touch me and tell me it's going to be okay. And so do you." Yami blushed and refused to meet Yugi's gaze any longer. "Hey." He felt finger against his cheek. "Look at me, please?" Yami complied. "There. That's better." He smiled. And he leaned forward and kissed the Pharaoh, because nothing else seemed to make sense.

Yami was surprised. Yugi was not a bold person. He was not daring and he didn't make rash decisions. But nothing about this felt rash. It felt right and destined. All the tension that had been living in the spirit's chest was lifted. All of it was being shared and expelled as they pulled apart to breathe and came back together again. Yami attacked his light's neck, kissing and biting and touching gently. Yugi moaned and pulled him closer. "Ya-Yami..." Their lips met again, their hearts beating faster, trying to catch up to one another. The spirit pushed Yugi against the wall, grinding himself against him, burying he face in his neck, eliciting more small moans from the smaller boy's throat, moans he tried to catch as he licked his way across the smooth flesh of Yugi's neck, moving up and around, behind his earlobes, dipping his tongue in and out. Yugi smiled and pulled him back to his lips. He wanted him, all of him. Tongues darted in and out, inviting one another to play some kind of strange, but alluring game.

Hands got carried away and soon, shirts were discarded. "Yami," Yugi breathed. "Please. I can't-" Yami silenced him with a kiss and nodded. He knew. He knew everything. The mental barrier were gone for now. Clothes were getting in the way, so they were quickly done away with. Sweat slicked skin and bruised, happy lips, met and pulled apart and came back together. A single motion seemed to be being created, a single form was taking shape there on the cold ground, ground that was growing warmer by the second.

Yami slipped into his hikari, relishing in the look of surprise and shock that registered on the boy's face. Unison was quickly found, there next to pleasure. They cried out and Yugi begged for more, for something else.

For release.

They found it not soon after they started, crying out one last time and holding one another tight, gripping and digging nails and whimpering into each other's neck. Yami licked the sweat pooled at the crook of Yugi's neck and held him tight.

"Yami?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm so tired..."

"Me too, little one."

"I'm going to sleep now, okay? I'm going back." Yami nodded and kissed the boy lightly on the shoulders, chest, and arms. Sighing, Yugi stood and put his clothes back on, marvelling at the feeling he felt deep within. He held his other self to him tightly, one last time.

"I have always felt this way," he whispered. And the spirit knew it was true.

"Go, sleep."

"Believe me, I will."

"I'll be here."

"I know."

"I..."

"You don't have to say it," Yugi said, smiled. "I know how you feel." He vanished into the shadows, leaving Yami not entirely alone. He felt the boy's presence there, felt his warm hands in his own, could feel him surrounding his body. He drifted to sleep, finally, the moments of the night still with him, the feel of Yugi's body so close to his, their hearts beating together as one, their bodies a single being.

"I do love you," he said to the shadows. And somehow, somewhere, he felt Yugi's response. And it was enough to put him right to sleep.


End file.
